PERSONAL BRANDING. Natalia Untung BARBRA Sundquist IMG 220

Transcription

1 PERSONAL BRANDING Natalia Untung BARBRA Sundquist IMG 220

2 This report documents the steps I have taken to develop my professional online reputation, as well as my plan for further strengthening my visibility and credibility. It covers my current brand as of January 24, 2016, identifying my brand; identifying the personas the recruiter, I want to target with my messages; my personal brand statement; my personal branding goals; tools I considered; tools I choose and why I choose them; my keywords; and my plans for monitoring and measuring results. Search Engine Results on January 24, 2016 The first thing I did was Google my name. This is what I found:

3 As you can see from the screenshot above, there is quite a bit of information about me. The types of information include my social media accounts such as pinterest, fix.it, instagram, facebook and others.

4 I also thought it would be interesting to search for my name in the other two main search engines, Yahoo and Bing. I discovered that in bing the results were quite different than in google. It s almost no information about me at all on bing.

5 Ideally, what I would like to see show up in the bing is more information about me as well as in google since it s the second most used search engine so the recruiter can easily look and analyzing my profile online. Identifying My Brand In order to develop a consistent online brand, I first needed to figure out what my goals for personal branding are. The first step in doing this is to decide what type of job I'm going for. One way of determining that is to decide "what do I want to be known AS." I decided I want to be known as a Web Developer. I found it challenging to figure this out because I just started to pursue it. Once I decided what I wanted to be known as, I needed to refine that to make it more specific to me. I brainstormed my skills, abilities and unique personal qualities and this is what I came up with to share my achievement online so the recruiters and other people would know more about me. One of the tasks was identify my "superpower". A superpower is defined as a thing that I do so naturally that I don t even realize that it is a natural gift I have. I decided that my particular superpower is working through computer problem. Figuring out my superpower was easy to do because a lot of people have been saying that I m good with computer. When I think about my superpower, I feel happy because I now found out what I want to do with it and how I can make it to the fullest. From the brainstorming list I decided that I would focus on technology, software and computer companies as the companies that i would like to find me online. This is because after I finish school, I will be looking for a job with that type of company. My branding online will show them that I would be a good employee for them to hire. The types of problems that I anticipate I could solve for the employers is solving through computer problems, develop new phone application or website, and also working through all kind of computer software. Writing my brand statement After doing all that analysis, I put it all together and this is the personal branding statement that I came up with: 1. Decide what job you are going for. Web Developer 2. List your top three skills related to the job. Working with computer software Fixing computer problems Ability to use many computer skilled-software 3. Identify your SUPERPOWER. Do this by making a list of everything that makes you YOU. Then select the

6 one thing that you are most passionate about: this is your SUPERPOWER, the thing that you do so well and so naturally that you don't even realize that it is a natural gift you have. I can work with computer problems quickly. 4. List the three main services you provide. Designing Developing new computer software Working with technology. 5. Decide who you are going to serve with your SUPERPOWER. Make it as specific as possible. These people are your potential employers or clients. Design agency? Small businesses? Non-profit environmental groups? Software, Web Developing company. 6. Identify the problems your employer or clients have that you can solve. Working through minor computer or software problems. 7. Identify how you could use your SKILLS and SUPERPOWER to help them solve their problems. By developing good software. When I read my personal branding statement, I feel that it does/does not reflect how I want to be seen online in my professional role. The reason I say this because I might be a little far from the target where I want people to see me as. I could address this issue by selling more of my personal branding and gain more knowledge in the area I want people to know me about, but overall I have concluded that I can do it step by step without rushing and get better result. My personal branding goals My personal branding goals are 1. Achieve excellent performance in developing computer software. 2. Known widely for my ability in information technology. 3. Attract recruiters or companies that I want to work in. Tools I considered I considered a variety of tools to use to achieve my personal branding goals. Below are my thoughts on the pros and cons of each of the major tools as they apply to my goals. LinkedIn: Pros: Most recruiters use it to look for candidates. You can easily connect or interacting with company that you interested in. Cons: It usually connect with your other social media so you should be careful with content you putting online everywhere. Linkedin paid subscription is quite expensive and may not affordable for small business owners. Facebook:

7 Pros: It s easy to use Enhance your social skills A place to share ideas or thoughts Cons: It might be addictive to some people. About.me: Pros: Great design on the website. Most professional personal brand website. Cons: I don t think lots of people using about.me or know how to use it. Twitter: Pros: Contents can easily go viral by #hashtag. Great for self-promotion. Every tweet goes to your followers and if someone retweet your tweets it would also go to your follower followers feed. Cons: It s not ideal for visual content. Text only limited to 140 characters. Your tweet can easily buried as most users follow hundred profiles. Instagram Pros: It is the most famous app for photo sharing. You can choose whether you want to make your photos public or private. Nowadays a lot of people started making money just from uploading their picture on instagram. Cons: It s primarily a smartphone app so it s really hard to use with the web version. Wordpress: Pros: Easy content updates. You can learn how to working with website without the need of professional help. Wordpress community is the largest and people can work on their own platform to make it much attractive. Most large companies use it as their domain website. Cons: Custom layouts and themes sometimes can be a little hard and need time. You need to actively advertise your blog or website for people to found it. Blogger: Pros: Blogger is free! Clean aka No ads It s super easy to blog right away Cons: You don t technically own your blog. Blogger have the right to suspend your account. There are only limited templates that you can use. YouTube: Pros: Easy to use such as uploading, viewing or creating videos. Good and inexpensive way to advertising or reach the media. Youtube can be useful and informative. Cons: Copyright infringement issues are common. You have to be careful or you might not get any penny on videos you uploading online. Pinterest:

8 Pros: People are more likely to pull out their wallet to purchase on pinterest than on other social media. It s easy to repin or just save pin that interest you. Attractive to look and addictive. Cons: Finding a potential audience (if you are selling something) in pinterest is hard unless they are already interested in your product concept. You should only put professional selected and captured image on pinterest to attract more audience since the brand itself focused on heavy image requirements. 4chan: Pros: infamous for good reason. People can participate anonymously. Most of the users is advanced hackers who can track people down. Now it s one of the Internet s most influential communities. Cons: Most of the contents are adults-content. Since people can participate anonymously, even if they do illegal things, there are no consequences for their action. Tools I choose Based on my analysis of the various tools in relation to my personal branding goals, I will focus my efforts on the following tools: 1. Twitter, as content can easily go viral and it s an open discussion kind of thing, so I also need to filter what kind of information I want for people to see. 2. LinkedIn, I want to build professional image by adding more content and work with my achievement. 3. Facebook, since most recruiters searching their candidates online so I would filter things that I want to share publicly. My keywords Keywords or keyword phrases are defined as a look up definition Keywords are important because it s make it easier for people to search and find the best result that they want to look. From a branding point of view, keywords are important because they help employers find me online. For example, if an employer typed north island college student information technology program they might find me easier than if they just typed in information technology administrator One thing that's important to be aware of in relationship to keywords is bad selection of the keywords. Another caution is your profile is not related to the keywords that you want others to see.

9 However, done right, targeting specific keywords or keyword phrases will help me reach my goals because my profile would be at the top on every search engine so people would look at my source first rather than other website. For my branding efforts the two keywords or keyword phrases that I will focus on are: 1) Information technology administrator Toronto. 2) Web developer Vancouver or Toronto Monitoring and measuring results In order to make the most of my personal branding project, I need to set some quantifiable goals. Even though setting quantifiable goals is a little bit like looking into a crystal ball, it's still important to have some targets to reach toward and measure against. I will use HootSuite as my monitoring and measuring dashboard, and the types of things I will measure are LinkedIn and Facebook. Setting up my accounts In order to set up my accounts, I needed to have some information prepared ahead of time. In addition to the brand statement written above, I needed to establish the following information in order to keep it consistent across the Internet: Twitter Name: IMNataliaUntung Profile photo: THE ONE TAKEN IN VANCOUVER Job title: N/A Short bio: I m a lover not a fighter xx How I will use this tool: To share information in real time and for marketing in business. What I want to achieve with this tool: Share information with people without barriers and connect with people all around the world.

10 About.me Name: Natalia Untung Profile photo: the one taken at home Job title: Web developer, Student and Dancer Short bio: Web developer, dancer and student in Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada. How I will use this tool: For recruiters to hire me and promote my personal branding. What I want to achieve with this tool: link multiple social media account and selling my personal brand.

11 LinkedIn Name: Natalia Untung Profile photo: Taken at home Job title: Computer Networking Short bio: -- How I will use this tool: I will use this tool to engage and connect with company and recruiters also to building my personal brand image so others know what I m valued. What I want to achieve with this tool: To make a good professional brand images that will attract recruiters.

12 Google+ Name: Natalia U Profile photo: taken at home Job title: Student Short bio: N/A How I will use this tool: to connect with people and filtering what information I want people to see. What I want to achieve with this tool: To connect with perspective clients or even coworkers for

13 Instagram Name: nataliauntung Profile photo: taken at home Job title: N/A Short bio: God has bigger plan for me than I had for myself. Indonesia-Taiwan-Canada How I will use this tool: I usually use instagram to share my personal life. What I want to achieve with this tool: share my photos with friends. Pinterest Name: Natalia Untung Profile photo: taken in Indonesia Job title: N/A Short bio: Follow me on instagram :: nataliauntung :) How I will use this tool: I usually use this tool as a way to share image that I find interesting and I want to apply in real life. What I want to achieve with this tool: share photos, repin things that I found interesting.

14 11. Conclusion In this report I have described how I analyzed my needs for establishing a personal brand online.

15 The most difficult part of doing this project has been discovering what my personal brand is, what I want people to recognize about me, what I want to sell to other people. On the other hand, the part that I found relatively easy was attaching all my social media account since I ve been engaging in social media since long time ago. My feelings about establishing a personal brand online are fun and doing this assignment making me understand what social media is about. With technology nowadays, social media has growing to the next level. It s not only for connecting people or engaging with your friends but you can also use it to building your professional image. I realize that my personal branding project has only just begun. My next steps will be: 1. Participate more in social media platforms. 2. Patient to see the results grow over the coming months. 3. Learn more about how to using social media to the fullest.